


i wanna know you

by dryadfiona



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23319556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dryadfiona/pseuds/dryadfiona
Summary: Max never expected to see Rachel again.
Relationships: Rachel Amber/Maxine "Max" Caulfield
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	i wanna know you

One thing no one ever told her in high school was how much work being a photographer was.

Well, that's not _exactly_ accurate. She knew that taking photos was much more complicated than just pointing a camera, and she knew that breaking into the "art world" was absurdly complicated. But that's where all her teachers stopped: breaking _into_ the art world.

Now she has to manage contracts with other galleries, deal with people selling unauthorized copies of her photos, get those same copies taken off of Pinterest. (If someone had told high school Max she'd have hated Pinterest with a passion as an adult, she'd have laughed. How the tables turn.)

She's doing paperwork in the back room of the gallery she works with in Portland, relieved that no new photos of hers are going to be on display tonight. She loves showing off her work, but she's honestly too tired for the normal rounds.

So when someone knocks on the door to the backroom, an hour before the gallery's supposed to open and she looks over the calendar to see _model arriving to discuss photoshoot options_ , she doesn't feel bad about putting her face down on her desk and groaning quietly.

"Hello?" she hears, and the voice sounds vaguely familiar. It's probably just someone who'd stopped by the gallery one of the previous nights she was working, and she vaguely hopes she won't be expected to remember their name as she crosses the room to open the door.

"Hi, sorry, I was just--Rachel?"

Rachel Amber, standing on the other side of the door, has one hand raised like she's about to knock again. Her look of surprise hasn't changed--wide eyes, mouth in a perfect O. Still, she looks different, and not just because almost a decade has passed--her makeup's lighter than Max remembers it being, and she's dressed in pastels that the Rachel she remembers would never have worn.

"Max Caulfield," Rachel says, hand dropping slowly. "I had no idea this was your gallery!"

"Ah, no," Max says with a small smile. "I just work with this place. If I owned a gallery, it'd be more--"

"Lowkey?" Rachel says, looking around the crimson walls and striking golden display cases. "This place seems bold for you, Max."

Max bristles at that, a little, but she's come a long way from high school, too. "My work's evolved a bit."

"Do you still use your old camera?" Rachel asks, looking at the black-and-white photos of food and scantily-clad models and roads to nowhere. This month's theme is "temptation", whatever that means. Her tone's a little hard to read, just like it was in high school, when Max had a crush and Rachel was an enigma.

"Yeah, of course," Max says. "It's in my bag. I have a couple other cameras, though, one digital. Some photos are really hard to take with film."

Rachel turns to her with a smile that's almost as breathtaking as it was nine years ago. "Good. I'm glad. Some of us shouldn't change too much."

"You look different," Max says.

Rachel shrugs a little, self-deprecating, entirely unlike the girl Max remembers. "Portland's looking for something more _natural_."

"What happened to LA?" Max asks, heading over to one of the surprisingly-comfy benches in the gallery. Rachel follows her--a weird inversion of their high school dynamic. 

"LA was...expensive," Rachel says. "Way more than I thought. And money was so hard to come by, and Chloe and I kept fighting, and eventually I realized I wasn't cut out for it. So I moved closer to home."

Max frowns. It's not even that she sounds sad, though she does; Rachel being sad would be understandable. It's the resignation in her town, the matter-of-fact way she says _wasn't cut out for it_. She remembers a girl with the confidence to take on the world and the skill to survive trying to. But then, that was nine years ago. She should be over her crush.

 _Should_ , of course, being the operative word. 

"Well, I don't know if you should give up," Max says. Rachel turns to her, not angry or hopeful, just quietly listening without any real interest. "I mean, you're--gorgeous." Rachel smiles a little. "And I know it's been a long time since I've worked with you, but you were a natural model. Working with you was easier than working with some of the professional models I've worked with over the years."

Rachel laughs, then, and Max's heart skips a beat, the traitor. "I forgot you were an optimist."

"I forgot you weren't," Max says before she can think better of it.

Rachel doesn't seem to take offense, though, just smiles bitterly. "I was a dumb kid."

"No, you weren't," Max says. "I mean, clearly you're doing well modeling here in Portland."

Rachel snorts. "It's not my scene. I mean, better than Arcadia Bay, but still."

"Portland's a big city," Max says, not sure why she wants to convince Rachel so badly that this is a place for her. "If you think it's not your scene, you're just not in the right place."

Rachel smiles again, genuine this time. "Optimist."

Max shrugs a little, but she's smiling. She thinks Rachel's shifted closer. 

Rachel sighs dramatically, stretching. Max notices a new tattoo, a bluejay on her shoulder, and smiles a little.

"Is that Chloe's art?" Max asks, pressing a finger to Rachel's shoulder.

Rachel nods, putting her hand on the tattoo. (Max hurriedly moves her hand away.) "Yeah. It's a nice reminder of the good times."

"So you two...aren't together?" Max asks. 

Rachel smirks a little. "No. Why, interested?"

Max used to be flustered by obvious flirting from pretty women, but it's been awhile. "Maybe."

Rachel blinks a bit, surprised but not upset. "Hm. Maybe this gallery isn't a bad fit for you after all." She looks around the photos. "Are any of these yours?"

"No," Max says. "The theme was temptation. Nothing really seemed to fit."

"Nothing?" Rachel asks, and Max looks at her. The way she's twirling her hair around her ear, the bracelet she always wore still on her wrist, the way she's almost shy in a way that high school Max could never have imagined.

"Well," Max says. "I might have found a model."


End file.
